- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Prime minister Narendra Modi has been making frequent visits to the southern Indian state of Karnataka in the run-up to the May 10 assembly elections.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is leaving no stone unturned to win the state, the only in the south where it is in power and is a major player, hoping to tame the anti-incumbency challenge and break the tradition of Karnataka politics.
The saffron party has also been buying time to release its list of candidates, showing how cautious it is when it comes to distributing tickets in the post-BSY era. Former chief minister BS Yediyurappa, who has decided against contesting polls, has been one of the BJP’s major trump cards in pulling the key Lingayat votes.
In his absence, the Lingayat voters are not sure whether there will be any Lingayat chief ministerial face for the BJP and that creates a vacuum for the party to fill. The opposition Indian National Congress also has its share of internal challenges but yet it looks it has taken a fresh initiative to wrest the key southern state from the BJP ahead of next year’s general elections.
If the BJP loses the May 10 elections, will that hurt Modi’s image at the national level before next year’s general polls?
According to Dr Sandeep Shastri, vice chancellor of Jagran Lakecity University in Bhopal in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, national coordinator of Lokniti Network and one of India’s renowned psephologists, doesn’t think so.
Speaking to India Weekly, he said state elections are different from the national ones.
“It is important to note that state elections are different from national elections. Karnataka showed it way back in 1980s. In 2013, the BJP lost in Karnataka and Siddaramaiah became the chief minister as the Congress came to power. But the BJP swept the state during the national elections of 2014.
“The same happened in 2018 when no party got a majority. But in 2019, Modi-led BJP again swept the polls. National election issues are different. Modi will play a big role in states such as Karnataka during the 2024 general polls. But the 2023 election is not about deciding Modi as the PM but the chief minister of the state. If the BJP loses this election, it will be a setback as they will not only lose the only state in south but also face an immense challenge in the neighbouring Telangana where the Bharat Rashtra Samithi is in power.”
